


Thirty Days of You and Me

by bellabeatrice



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Fluff, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Spider-Man: Far From Home Compliant, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Slow Burn, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, bite me, i wanted to write this fic but canon got in the way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2020-06-24 06:29:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19718095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabeatrice/pseuds/bellabeatrice
Summary: When high school graduate, genius mechanic, and fight club champion Harley Keener got the hell out of Tennessee and found peace at Tony’s cabin in New York, he didn’t know anything about Peter Parker. Tony had told him about Peter Parker, and Harley had imagined that he would be a lot of different things. He didn’t expect him to be so perfect. Perfectly infuriating, that is, and now he has to spend thirty days in the middle of nowhere with this perfect, pretty boy.“What should we call it?” Peter asked.“Call what? The challenge?”“Well, yeah.” Peter’s face reddened, but he refused to look away from Harley. “I was thinking something along the lines of the Thirty Days Challenge.”Harley considered it for a moment before shaking his head. “Too basic, too broad.”Peter pouted, and Harley hated that he thought it was adorable. “Well, what do you suggest then?”“The Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge.”





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> Well, folks. Here it is! Welcome to Thirty Days of You and Me. Please enjoy! And leave a comment, if you wish. 
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr: bellaxbeatrice

**** Harley Keener was eleven when Tony Stark crashed into his life, and that was the day he realized he could fix anything. If he could fix an Iron Man suit, fix his bullying problem, and even fix the anxious mess that was Tony Stark, then he was invincible.

He might not have seen Tony again afterwards, but the man left plenty behind: a teched-out garage, his personal number, and a silent offer to become the father-figure Harley needed. Above all though, the most important thing Tony left behind was empowerment.

The first phone call was a month after the Mandarin incident, when Harley just wanted to see if Tony was okay (he was, by the way). They spent an hour talking about the move to New York after Tony’s house in Malibu was destroyed, Tony’s ideas for new projects and improvements, Harley’s grades at school, and the Mark V potato gun. After that first call, they began to keep in touch somewhat regularly. They tried to call every week, but Iron Man was a superhero busy saving the world, and Harley was a teenager who forgot his responsibilities sometimes. 

When they did have time to talk, it would usually be past midnight when Tony couldn’t sleep and Harley didn’t want to. They’d chat for hours about anything and everything. Tony talked about the Avengers and the superhero things they did, Steve Rogers, whom he never saw eye-to-eye with, and when he bought an engagement ring for Pepper, Harley was the first person to know. He had gotten good at reading between the lines, picking out Tony’s insecurities and anxieties from the narcissistic humor. 

In return, Harley talked about growing up. He told Tony about his projects that never seemed to stop growing, about fixing things “just like The Mechanic.” He talked about E.J., the bully that wasn’t really a bully anymore, now downgraded to an annoyance. 

When Harley was fourteen, he came out for the first time, whispered to Tony Stark that he was gay. Tony had just said, “Cool, kid,” then asked him about biology. 

Harley told Tony about his family; hazy memories of a father who left and a bitterness that would never fade, and Mama, who shouldn’t have time to take care of her children, but found some anyway between working, sleeping and eating (Harley didn’t think she did much of the latter two). He also told Tony about Abbie, his younger sister whom he had taken care of since his father left. It wasn’t really fair of Mama to leave a six-year-old as the primary caretaker of an infant, but life wasn’t fair. Harley packed her lunches, walked her to school before running to his own a few blocks away, told her bedtime stories, and kept the light on in their shared bedroom because she was scared of the dark. 

Then, when Harley was fifteen, Abbie got sick. Biology wasn’t Harley’s best subject (he preferred physics, math, and sometimes chemistry), so he didn’t really understand what the doctor said about Abbie’s condition. One familiar word resonated deep inside Harley, though, and he latched onto it in dread.

_ Lupus _ .

Harley knew what lupus meant: a lifetime of pain, medical bills, and medicine they couldn’t afford. When they took Abbie in for more testing, Harley ran the two miles from the hospital to their house, ignoring Mama’s desperate pleas for him to stay because she couldn’t do this alone. He went straight to the garage and fixed things, anything he could find; Harley just needed to fix. He might not be able to fix Abbie, but at least he could fix their leaky faucet.

Just like Harley expected, they couldn’t pay for Abbie’s medical bills, tests, and the medicine she desperately needed, so he started working.

Abbie needed a caretaker and Mama still never had time, even for her broken little girl. Despite all the hours she worked, it wasn’t enough to pay the bills, so Harley opened up his garage to the public. He called it The Mechanic’s Shed, an homage to the father figure he never really talked to anymore. They called each other once a month, maybe. Once, Tony offered to help them out and send money, get them a better insurance plan. Harley wanted to accept, he really did, but he was a bullheaded teenager whose new business was booming, and he wanted to be the one to fix the wretchedness of their lives.

  
  
  


An easy solution presented itself one day while he was working in the Shed. 

“You look like you could blow off some steam” they told him, and they were right. That stupid vacuum cleaner was disgusting and clogged. He spent hours poking around in the built up dirt and hairballs and still couldn’t figure out what was wrong underneath all the grime. Throwing down his tools, Harley followed them to an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Rose Hill where they taught him how to fight.

At sixteen, Harley won his first fight after training for three hard months at the fight club. He held the stacks of bills, counted them again and again until the numbers blurred in his brain: $15,000. It was more money than they’d ever had, and it paid off the rest of their mortgage. The family might go bankrupt at any given moment, but at least they owned a house - a guaranteed roof over their heads.

The calls with Tony stopped at some point, and Harley didn’t have the time to miss them. He went to school, suffered through classes, and fell asleep during calculus. His grades were suffering, but as long as he didn’t fail, Harley was fine with that. He didn’t need college anyway. It was expensive and a needless financial strain. After school, Harley would work at the Shed, fixing the things people brought in for him until the sun set. Then he would fight. He trained hard and punched harder, and the money it brought in gave them more financial security than they had in years. Mama stopped working long hours and could care for her little girl because Harley fought to support them, to give them the life they deserved.

After graduating high school, Harley threw himself into work. The Mechanic Jr. by day, and a fight club champion by night. He wasn’t a superhero with a secret identity, but he sure felt a lot like one. The idea was exhilarating.

Once upon a time, all Harley wanted was to get out of Rose Hill, follow Tony’s footsteps by attending MIT, and make a good, honest life for himself. This dream was all but forgotten when Harly stood triumphant in the middle of an illegal boxing ring. For once, life was good for Harley Keener.

  
  
  
  


Then, Abbie died.

The doctors said she had an infection caused by the medicine she took. Harley wasn’t really listening; he was too busy shattering.

He stopped working, stopped fighting, stopped eating and sleeping. All he did was curl up in Abbie’s bed and lie there with his eyes open, thinking about the sister he didn’t get to know. In the past couple of years, Harley hadn’t been home very much, so the Abbie he still remembered vividly was eight, not thirteen. Harley remembered the heat of summer, shoplifting to bring home a tub of vanilla ice cream. At the time, Abbie’s eyes lit up in delight, and Harley committed it to memory. Now, that moment in time was the only memory he had of his sister.

Harley punched the wall, glaring at the hole his fist left. There was a hole inside of him too, punched in by his father’s abandonment, his mother’s depression, his sister’s death. He was so, so alone.

Then, Tony Stark called him. “Hey, kid. I haven’t heard from you in a while.”

The call lasted three hours, and the first half-hour was Harley sobbing as he listened to Tony’s unsteady breathing on the other end. He thought he could hear Cyndi Lauper playing faintly in the background. Then, like a dam bursting, he told Tony everything that happened in the past two years, while the other man listened quietly. By the time he hung up, Harley felt lighter. Maybe it would never get better, maybe he would always be a miserable wreck, but he didn’t feel alone anymore, and it made all the difference in the world.

Tony texted him an address for somewhere in New York. “Come when you’re ready. Open invitation.” Harley left the next day. He woke with the sun and kissed his Mama goodbye, drove ten hours straight in the 1969 Ford Mustang Tony restored all those years ago. Harley was getting the hell out of Tennessee.

Instead of a glittering, glass monstrosity towering over Manhattan, like he expected, Harley was faced with a serene cabin overlooking Lake Erie. He thought it would remind him of Rose Hill, too similar to the place he just escaped from to be comfortable, but it didn’t. It felt safe, and for the first time in years, Harley felt like he could breathe.

Tony was expecting him, even though Harley forgot to call and say he was coming. The man was waiting on the porch when he parked the car. Neither of them really did hugs, but they embraced anyway, and Harley felt the last of his despair slip away. There was still an ache that lingered, but it was manageable, at least.

That night, he met Pepper, Tony’s wife, who hugged him and set out an extra dinner plate. He met Morgan, Tony’s baby daughter. Harley thought he was all cried out, but rocking the little girl in his arms as Tony and Pepper did the dishes was enough to make him blink back tears. One escaped, fell onto her forehead and glistened sadly. He brushed it away, kissed the spot where it landed, vowing to protect her, to succeed with Morgan where he failed with Abbie.

It was a sleepless night for Harley, so he climbed a tree in the yard and watched silently over the house. When the sun rose, he clambered back down and went into the house, his house now too. A dirty plate in the sink and a half-full pot of coffee showed Tony was already awake, but the man was nowhere to be found. However, Harley did find a toolbox and stack of wood in his room when he entered, the only explanation being a blank card signed “The Mechanic.” Harley smiled, and it felt weird on his tear-stained face. 

He took the tools, wood, and a mug of coffee outside, where he built something new. After years of only fixing broken things, construction felt glorious. By the time Pepper called him inside for dinner, he had the framework for a treehouse set up.

  
  
  
  


Two peaceful weeks Harley spent at the cabin, working on his treehouse, drinking coffee with Tony, cooking dinner with Pepper, and taking care of Morgan. The Stark family helped fill the hole that Rose Hill had left. Although it wasn’t quite the same, it was definitely more than okay, and that was all Harley needed.

Then, Tony had to ruin it by telling Harley about Peter Parker, Tony’s intern and, apparently, a superhero to boot. He, like Harley, just graduated from high school, but Peter attended a fancy science and technology school on scholarship. Peter just got home from Europe, a three-week trip he had taken with his friends, and was spending a week in Queens with his aunt before spending the rest of his summer in the cabin. On top of all this, he was going to MIT in the fall. If Harley was jealous of the proud glint in Tony's eyes as he talked about Peter, he did his best to hide it.

  
  
  
  


In late July, Peter pulled up to the cabin in a sleek black car driven by the Starks’ bodyguard, Happy. Harley watched from his tree in the backyard, but turned back to work with a bitter taste in his mouth as Peter disappeared into the cabin. He was trying to figure out how to get the treehouse from the ground into the tree and where it would be the most stable. Engrossed in his work, he didn’t hear the back door slam open with a crash.

“Hey, I’m Peter.” The words startled Harley so much that he fell out of the tree, landed on his back, and got the air knocked out of his lungs. The other boy panicked. “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry, I thought you heard me come out of the house, and I didn’t even think about the fact that you were in a tree. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

Harley grit his teeth and closed his eyes, blocking out Peter’s chatter as he caught his breath. When he could breathe again, he pushed himself to his feet with a groan, used to the pain. The impact equivalent to getting slammed to the ground in a fight.

“I’m fine,” he spat out as Peter watched him, expression mirroring a kicked puppy. The look only intensified at Harley’s tone.

“I’m so sorry, man. Can I get a do-over?” The boy stuck his hand out with an expectant face. “Hey, I’m Peter Parker.”

“Harley Keener.” Without another word, he brushed past Peter and walked towards the house. He was done working for the day and he wanted to clean up before dinner, trying to ignore Peter’s stricken face as he grabbed clean clothes from his room and stomped towards the bathroom. He was a little mad that Peter scared him out of the tree, a little embarrassed about falling in front of the other boy, and more than a little jealous of Tony’s young, genius replacement.

When Tony had told him about Peter Parker, Harley imagined that he would be a lot of different things. He didn’t expect him to be so...perfect.

It made Harley’s blood boil.

Tony was lingering in the hallway when he stepped out of the bathroom. “Peter is going to be staying in your room. We put the spare bed in there already. You’re good with that?”

Harley couldn’t do anything but agree. Was he supposed to make Tony’s favorite boy sleep on the couch? Of course not. He bit back a scathing comment and nodded. The delighted look on Tony’s face almost made it worth it.

Harley kept quiet throughout dinner. Pepper and Tony were clearly thrilled to have the other boy there, and even Morgan got caught up in the excitement. “Pete!” she shrieked, clapping her hands, and the boy looked thrilled.

Of course, Harley was not at all jealous that Morgan could say Peter’s name. His name was just more sophisticated than Peter’s, that was why. He was also not at all petty, not one bit.

  
  
  


Peter was already in Harley’s bedroom when he walked in after washing the dishes with Pepper. He was lying on his bed and looked up from his phone when Harley entered.

“I know you don’t like me,” Peter stated once Harley had sat on his bed.

“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out,” he spat back, pulling his shirt off. New York might not be as hot as Tennessee, but it was still too darn hot in the summer.

Peter continued without missing a beat. “And I don’t like you either.”

“You ain’t the first person to tell me that, I doubt you’ll be the last.”

“You’re an asshole, Keener, did you know that?”

Harley smirked. “Only for you, Parker.”

Peter sighed impatiently, so Harley rolled onto his side to face the other boy. “Look, I’m only here for thirty days, starting tomorrow, until I have to go to Boston. Then, I’ll be out of your hair. Think we can be civil?”

Only thirty days? Harley shrugged. “Sure. Challenge accepted.”

Peter smiled, a soft, nervous smile that lit up his face. He held out his hand, like a dork, and like a dork, Harley shook it. “What should we call it?”

“Call what? The challenge?”

“Well, yeah.” Peter’s face reddened, but he refused to look away from Harley.

He had to admire the kid’s boldness. “You’re a piece of work, Parker.”

“Only for you,” he shot back, but Harley watched the redness creep towards his neck.

“I was thinking something along the lines of the Thirty Days Challenge.”

Harley considered it for a moment before shaking his head. “Too basic, too broad.”

Peter pouted, and Harley hated that he thought it was adorable. “Well, what do you suggest then?”

“The Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge.”   
  



	2. Satisfaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day One and Day Two of The Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge
> 
> OR
> 
> In which Harley has confusing feelings and Peter can't fish

****Harley rose with the sun. There was a time when he was not a morning person, preferring to stay up all night and sleep during the day, but work cultivated the habit of waking up early, a habit he had yet to break.

Due to the time, Peter was still asleep. As Harley changed out of his pajamas, he watched the other boy. Peter was curled up into a ball, smack in the middle of his mattress. He looked tense. Harley guessed he was having a bad dream. Awake, Peter had this soft, delicate aura; he was chirpy and smiled a lot. Asleep, he looked weary, older than he was. Harley might have been jealous of the bright, shining boy, but as he watched Peter sleep, he couldn’t forget that the boy superhero had seen his fair share of battles.

The rest of the house was still sleeping. It was quiet in the kitchen, sunlight filtering in through the window above the sink. Harley brewed a fresh pot of coffee, poured himself a mug, and went out to the porch.

Harley, who was used to working outdoors, kept a stack of whiteboards out on the porch for brainstorming projects. An idea struck him when he saw the stack, and once he had finished his coffee, he grabbed a board and marker and went back inside.

The shower was running and their room was empty, so Harley assumed Peter was in the bathroom. He grinned, taking advantage of the empty room. He kept a small set of tools under his bed, which he pulled out now, grabbing a hammer, a nail and some wire. 

When Peter came back from his shower, Harley was sitting cross-legged on the floor. “Parker,” he greeted with a small nod. “Close the door behind you, will you? I have something to show you.”

“Okay?” Peter looked wary but obliged while Harley watched his face with bated breath.

When Peter saw the whiteboard Harley had hung on the door, his face lit up and he laughed. It was such a jarring image after watching the weary, sleeping Peter, and it made him feel some sort of ache. He decided it was a mix of envious awe at the fact that Peter could laugh so easily despite supposed trauma, and joy at the fact that he was the one who made Peter laugh. Harley tore his eyes away from Peter, choosing to look at his handiwork.

‘Thirty Days of You and Me,’ the whiteboard read, in Harley’s messy block letters. ‘Day One.’

“You’re a cheeky asshole, you know,” Peter said, turning to Harley.

Harley just smirked. “Only for you, Parker.”

With that, he left the room and went to work on his treehouse. He found the perfect tree, but still had no idea how to move the treehouse from the ground. A pulley would work, he supposed, so he started to build one.

It really wasn’t a surprise that he couldn’t concentrate on the work. Peter Parker was running through his mind, and it seemed like a more pressing problem than his treehouse.

“Are you tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day,” Harley whispered to himself. He wasn’t one for pickup lines, but it seemed appropriate to say about Peter. Not that he ever would, of course, because he definitely wasn’t trying to pick up Peter, no matter how pretty the boy was when he laughed. Besides, what were the chances Peter was even into him? Slim to none, that’s what. Not that Harley wanted Peter to be into him. Nope, not at all.

With a sigh, he set down his tools. He was clearly not going to get any work done so he went into the cabin for lunch. Peter and Tony were nowhere to be found, but Pepper was frying eggs in the kitchen, Morgan crawling around on the ground next to her. She looked up when Harley walked in. “Hey, sweetheart. Do you want some lunch?”

“Sure, Pepper,” he said with a smile, picking up Morgan. “I’ll just have whatever you’re having.”

Pepper smiled as she watched Harley coo at Morgan. “Poached eggs coming right up.”

He sat quietly for a moment, bouncing a giggling Morgan on his leg. “Where’s Tony?”

“He’s in the basement lab. I think Peter went exploring. He packed a lunch and left just before you did.” Harley bit his lip. Exploring didn’t sound like a bad idea. He’d been at the cabin for a few weeks now, and the farthest he’d gone was the outer edge of the woods behind the house. Maybe he’d go after lunch, take a break from his project. 

Maybe he’d run into Peter. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

He hung out with Morgan and Pepper in the kitchen for a little while after lunch, but when Pepper stood and announced she had work to do, Harley took the hint and left, thanking her for lunch. 

After two hours of wandering aimlessly around in the woods with the sole aim of getting as far away as possible from the house without losing direction, Harley stumbled across a small brook. He spotted a large boulder in the shallow water, so he kicked off his sandals and waded through the water to climb up onto it. 

It was peaceful here. Sure, it was ridiculously hot and Harley was sweating through his tank top, but the water was cool. The running water and rustling leaves matched the steadying drum of his heartbeat and drowned out the maelstrom of his thoughts. He laid out on the rock, closing his eyes and breathing slowly.

“Harley?” He sat up so fast that he fell off of the rock, landing hard in the shallows.

What was it with Peter Parker causing him to fall? Harley grit his teeth and forced a grin as he looked up with a cheeky remark on his tongue.

It stuck in his throat, and he choked on it.

Peter Parker was looking at him with soft, concerned eyes and didn’t have a shirt on. Harley did a double take. What business did Peter have looking that good, dripping wet and shirtless? “Shit! Sorry about that. Are you okay?” Peter swam over from the deeper end of the brook and kneeled next to Harley. “You know, this seems kind of familiar. I need to stop scaring you so much, even if it’s unintentional.”

“Yeah,” Harley bit out, only the slightest bit distracted by the gorgeous, shirtless, and dripping-wet boy’s proximity. “You’re the worst, Parker, did you know?”

Peter let out a breath and laughed, relaxing. “Only for you, Keener. What are you doing out here anyway?”

“Exploring,” he replied shortly, also trying to relax. Peter made him on edge. “What about you?”

“Fishing.”

“What?”

“Fishing.”

“Yeah, I heard you. I just didn’t think you were the type to go fishing.” He squinted at Peter. “Did you even catch anything?”

“Nope,” he said with a small laugh, popping his “p.”

A small smile slipped onto Harley’s face. “How long have you been out here?”

Peter looked at his watch, a waterproof Stark Watch that was probably a gift from Tony. He’d have to ask Tony about getting one of his own. Besides, Tony owed him a watch. “A little over four hours, now.”

Taken by surprise, Harley let out a short bark of laughter. “And you didn’t catch nothing? You’re hopeless.”

“Yeah, well, in my defense, I don’t think a net is the most efficient way of fishing.”

“You used a net?”

Peter grinned and pointed to the shore of the brook where his things were gathered. “Yup, I found it in the garage. I think there’s some fishing poles in there too, but I don’t really know how to use one. I think you need bait for that to work? A net seemed more self-explanatory.”

“I’ll teach you how to fish.” Immediately, Harley bit his lip. God, why couldn’t he learn to keep his mouth shut. Did he really just offer to spend hours with Peter teaching him to fish?

Peter blinked a couple of times, obviously just as surprised at the offer as Harley was. “Um, sure?”

“Great.” Harley nodded once, standing up. Suddenly, he just wanted to be far, far away from Peter. “I’m gonna head back to the house now.”

Peter shot up. “I’ll walk back up with you, if you don’t mind. Let me just grab my stuff.”

Harley minded, but he didn’t say it. He wrung out his clothes as best as he could, slipped on his shoes, and watched Peter pull a shirt on with a twinge of disappointment that he steadfastly ignored. “Why were you fishing shirtless?”

“Satisfaction,” Peter quipped, throwing the net over his shoulder.

“I hope you found it,” Harley started slowly, a smirk overtaking his face, “because I’m about to find mine.”

Peter tilted his head to the side, looking at Harley with confusion. “How?”

“By beating you.” With that, Harley sprinted away.

“No, wait!” he heard Peter call as he took off running through the woods. He heard footsteps behind him but didn’t look back, not wanting to lose his lead.

In hindsight, he didn’t really know why he thought challenging a superhero to a race was a good idea, especially one with freaky spider powers. Peter was fast, much faster than the average human, and Harley cried out indignantly when Peter passed him in a blur. “Hey, no fair! You’ve got mutant powers!”

“Yeah, and you got a head start, so you can’t say crap about playing fair.” Peter shot back, but Harley could have sworn the other boy slowed down just a bit, enough for Harley to catch up before Peter took off again.

The two boys emerged from the woods at about the same time, bursting into the cabin and yelling over one another as Tony and Pepper stared at them in shock.

“I was first!” Peter claimed, turning to face Harley with a triumphant smile.

“You weren’t. I turned the knob to get in the house, clearly it was me!”

“Yeah, but I actually set foot inside first, so technically -”

“Technically, you’re a little shit, Parker, so you can shut up.”

Pepper snapped, “Language! Morgan’s right here.”

As Peter and Harley turned to acknowledge the rest of the family for the first time since entering, Peter whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “Only for you, Keener.”

Harley wanted to slap that smug smile off Peter Parker’s face.

  
  


Harley, again, found himself awake before the sun. A glance at his phone showed him it was only four o’clock. Sure, he was a morning person, but he rarely woke before dawn. What woke him up?

Then a soft whimper from the other side of the room gave Harley a clue. He shot up in bed and turned on the lamp, its soft glow hitting Peter, curled in the fetal position and shaking. The boy gasped suddenly and began panting, gulping in big, wheezing breaths like he couldn’t breathe. Harley stumbled out of bed and stepped closer. He was about to shake him awake, when the boy cried, “Help! Help, please. I’m down here! I’m stuck. I can’t move!”

“Peter!” Harley cried, placing a hand gently on his shoulder. “Peter, wake up!”

Peter shot up, throwing Harley’s hand aside so hard that his shoulder made a loud cracking sound as the joint popped. Harley shook out his arm and watched Peter cough, taking in deep, gasping breaths.

“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Peter whispered quietly to himself. Harley looked away, hating Peter’s vulnerability. “Crap. Harley? What are you doing?”

He looked at Peter’s face, red, scared and confused, and he felt like he should say something to comfort him. Harley didn’t know how to comfort him though. He had known the boy for, like, two days and didn’t even like him. However, Peter’s nightmare had woken him up, so he had to say something.

“I, uh, I woke you up.” Peter flushed and Harley just couldn’t do it. Saying something about the nightmare would lead to a long explanation he didn’t want to hear, and if it made Peter act awkward for the rest of their shared morning, that just wouldn’t do. “To go fishing! You know, because I said I’d take you to learn how to fish, and we should really go now so it won’t be too hot.”

Peter nodded slowly, looking confused, yet relieved, and Harley was glad he said nothing. “Right, thanks.”

“Sure. I’m gonna go change now, I guess.” He Harley quickly grabbed some clothes out of his dresser and made a hasty retreat to the bathroom. The door slammed a little too loudly behind him and he flinched, leaning heavily against the counter. The whole encounter had shaken him for some reason and he groaned. It was far too early to be feeling that much emotion and adrenaline.

After changing, Harley went back to their room and told Peter he would be in the kitchen. Peter nodded and left to get ready. After Harley gathered his wits and what little nerve he had left, he made to exit the room. The sight of the little whiteboard on the door made him stop. ‘Day Two,’ it read, written in Peter Parker’s shaky handwriting. Harley, finding himself staring for a moment too long, took a deep breath and smiled shakily.

The two of them marched to the brook in silence. While Peter packed them some food, Harley started a pot of coffee and searched for something to use as bait. He grabbed canned corn from the pantry and poured two thermoses of coffee for himself and Peter, which they drank out of as they walked. Harley found two fishing rods, two backpacks, and a cooler in the garage, which he dusted off brought along. He carried the ice filled cooler, while Peter carried the rods and tackle box because “not all of us have super spider strength. Carry your weight, Parker.”

“How do you even know how to fish?” Peter asked.

“My father taught me, back in the good days before he left.” Harley threw his head back and chuckled bitterly. “He said something about father-son bonding, like he knew what it meant to be a dad.”

He avoided Peter’s gaze because he was scared he’d see pity. He didn’t want pity, not anymore, so he was surprised when Peter said, “I hope you don’t view you teaching me how to fish as father-son bonding because that might be a little on the weird side, you know?”

Harley was startled into a laugh. “Yeah, no. Consider it a pity favor. Your attempt at fishing with a net yesterday was so pathetic.”

“It was not!”

“Yeah, it kind of was.” Just like that, the quiet was broken and they spent the rest of the walk bickering lightly. Harley kind of liked it, but he tried not to think about that too much.

The sun was just starting to rise by the time they got to the brook, so Harley worked quickly to hook and bait the rods with corn kernels from the can. Peter’s too-close presence as he watched over his shoulder was starting to annoy him, but he concentrated diligently. 

“Alright,” he said, standing up and dusting off his khakis. “Here, take this one. You know how to cast?”

Peter took the rod with narrowed eyes. “No, you asshole. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Lose the snark, Parker, and show some respect to your teacher, who has graciously volunteered to wake up before dawn and spend the morning with you.” Harley smirked as he demonstrated. “You see this button? Press it as you throw the hook forward, then let it go. Got it?”

“Um, sure.” Peter stared at the bobber bouncing in the water and Harley snickered. He propped the pole up on a nearby tree and watched the other boy expectantly. 

“Go on, Spider-boy. Try it.”

Peter glared shortly before taking a deep breath. He pulled the rod back too far and pushed the button too soon. Harley fought to keep a straight face as the line tangled in a tree’s branches. The other boy turned red as he stared helplessly at the corn dangling above his head.

“Hey, Harley? I think I messed up.” At Peter’s sheepish grin and shrug, Harley lost it. He laughed, which caused Peter to start laughing and they sat on the ground for a moment, staring at the line.

“You know, for a noob, you didn’t do too bad.”

Peter raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? I’d hate to see what bad is then.”

“The first time I tried to bait the hook by myself, I got the hook stuck in my finger. Here, look at the scar.” He held out his pointer finger to Peter, who took it gently and pulled it closer to his face. Harley tried not to flinch as Peter traced the jagged scar with a feather-light touch, distracting himself from the uneasy feeling by watching the horrified wonder that crossed the other boy’s face.

“Yeah, okay. I’ll leave the baiting to you.” Peter dropped his hand and looked up again at the tangled line. “I’ll also leave untangling that to you, since I honestly might just make more of a mess than I already have.”

Harley shoved his hand in his pocket as stood up. “Wise choice, Peter. I still have no idea how you managed to tangle it up this much.”

“You know me; I’m a child genius. I figured out a way to make your day as complicated as possible.”

“Astounding. You should really publish a paper about it. ‘How to Make Harley Keener’s Life Miserable.’”

“I don’t know how I feel about that title, but I guess it’ll work for now. Hey, do you think it would make me as famous of a scientist as Dr. Banner? Because that would be amazing.”

Harley looked over, a sarcastic reply on his tongue, when he saw the bouncing in the water. “Grab my pole! We’ve got a bite!”

Peter shot up and snatched up the pole with a panicked face. “What do I do?”

“Move the line up and down and reel it in,” he instructed, jumping down from the tree. He took the rod from Peter and finished bringing the fish in. While Peter might have made it look easy with his superhuman strength, Harley found himself struggling against the fish. “What the hell did we catch?”

Peter flapped his arms around helplessly as he stood too close and watched. “I don’t know. Is it a big fish?”

The fish made an appearance and Harley frantically reeled it in. “A ten-pound brook trout, by the look of her. Here’s what you’re gonna do, Parker. I forgot to grab the net, so I need you to hold on to her with your sticky fingers, okay? Then I can get the hook out.”

“Sorry, you want me to do what?”

“Hold the fish, Parker. Don’t look at me like that.”

“What do you mean, “don’t look at me like that?” You literally just told me to hold a fish, to touch a real, live fish with my ‘sticky fingers,’ which might I add is a blatant abuse of my spidey powers, and-”

“Now, Parker!” Harley grunted as he finally reeled the large fish in. 

Despite his nervous energy, Peter did as he was told, sticking his hands to the fish with a grimace. Harley worked quickly to remove the hook from the fish’s mouth. He took a pocket knife from the holster at his belt and quickly killed the fish, ignoring Peter’s squawks of shock.

“Why’d you kill it?” he said loudly, staring at Harley. “I thought we were gonna release it?”

“A prize fish like this?” He held the now dead fish up and relished at Peter’s disgusted face. “I’m no fool. We’re having trout for lunch.”

Harley stood up and dumped the fish in the cooler, cleaning his hands off with a rag. He laid down by the brook, pleasantly tired from the effort of catching the fish. Peter, after a moment of hesitation, laid down next to Harley. “Do you think Mrs. Stark knows how to cook trout?”

Peter’s soft words put a smile on Harley’s face. “I don’t know. If she doesn’t, I won’t mind cooking lunch for y’all.”

“You can cook?” 

Harley bit his lip. “Yeah. You learn how to once you realize Mama isn’t coming home for dinner, and there’s only so many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you can eat before they start tasting like sand.”

He expected pity to fill Peter’s face, but his expression was more like understanding. It didn’t make Harley feel any better. “Yeah, I know what you mean. I can’t cook much, but I can make some sick scrambled eggs. I learned how to after May almost burned the apartment down trying to make pancakes.”

“May’s your aunt?” Harley asked, turning onto his side to face Peter.

He nodded. “Yeah. She’s great and all, but she’s absolutely hopeless at cooking.”

The two of them laid there for a while, retrieving the rest of their coffee and the snacks Peter packed. They talked about the small things, May’s famous burnt meatloaf and Harley’s disastrous attempt at baking a cake for Abbie’s birthday, Tony and DUM-E’s antics in the lab, Pepper’s surprising ability to knit, his wildest stories as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and the weirdest things Harley had to fix at the Shed. The sun climbed in the sky, and when it was too hot to lie there any longer, they reluctantly dusted themselves off and made the trek back to the cabin in comfortable silence.

Harley was lost in his head, which was uncomfortably full of thoughts about Peter Parker. Sure, there was a part of him that was still jealous of the bright, shining boy that he felt had replaced him in Tony’s life, but another part of him said that his jealousy was ridiculous. His hatred of the boy had ebbed away to a mild dislike, maybe even less than that. Maybe Peter was growing on him, just a little bit, worming his way into Harley’s heart with easygoing laughter and horrible fishing skills. He’d never admit it though, least of all to himself.

“Hey, Harley?” He looked up, startled out of his thoughts. “You know how I said I didn’t like you?” 

Harley smirked. “Yeah, and?” His hands shook. He had no idea why.

Peter smiled nervously at him in a way that made his heart ache. “That’s not true anymore. You’re not so bad.” 

Harley gaped at him for a moment. “You’re such a sap,” he managed, relishing in the laugh it got out of Peter. 

“Only for you.” Peter’s face softened as he smiled bashfully. “Thank you, Harley.” 

“Sure, Peter. No problem.” As Harley smiled at Peter, he found a little part of him softening too. He melted for the other boy, and the worst part was that he had no idea how to feel about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how to fish, so I got most of this information from WikiHow. The one time I tried fishing, I got the hook stuck through my finger, so Harley's story comes straight from my heart. Let me tell y'all, it hurts! I've never tried fishing again. Here's chapter two! Hope you enjoyed. Please leave a comment, if you wish!
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr: bellaxbeatrice


	3. Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Three, Day Four, and Day Five of The Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge
> 
> OR
> 
> In which Harley takes the plunge and Peter dodges a punch

**** The treehouse was finished. Sure, it still needed some paint, furniture, and something better than a wonky rope ladder, but it was completely built and up in the tree. Harley stood on the balcony and looked out at the woods. His heart raced with the joy of accomplishment, of victory. He wasn’t just a mechanic anymore, someone who fixed things; he was a builder, someone who created. Harley had made this treehouse, and it was his. 

Abbie would have loved it. The thought should have made him sad, should have crippled him with grief, but for some reason, he just smiled sadly. 

Like Harley, Abbie was an outdoorsy child. She loved walking to and from school with Harley, picking flowers and pretty weeds from the side of the road. He pressed them and helped her create a small scrapbook, which was her most cherished possession. Before she got sick, she made plans to start a vegetable garden in their backyard. After she got sick, she spent a lot of her time inside, confined to a bed or a chair. That killed her just as much as the disease did. The scrapbook lay forgotten under her bed, but when Harley went to New York, it was the first thing he packed.

It was in the treehouse now, lying on one of the shelves in the one-roomed shed. Harley walked inside and picked it up, leafing through the pages. There was a hazy memory attached to each one, fleeting images of dirt under her fingernails and scraps of stories that she told. It was all there, buried under a thick layer of grief and anger he couldn’t bring himself to dust away just yet.

With a sigh, Harley placed the book back on the shelf and went back out onto the balcony. A car pulled out of the cabin’s garage, meaning Tony, Pepper, and Morgan were going out on their weekly grocery run. It was around noon, judging by the high sun, so Harley carefully climbed down on his rope ladder and went inside to make lunch.

As Harley sliced tomato to put into his sandwich, Peter walked up the stairs from the basement lab. His eyes were glued to the tablet in his hands, which projected chemical equations along with modules of different particles. Harley grimaced; chemistry had not been his best subject in school.

“Hungry?” 

Peter startled but kept his grip on the tablet. He smiled sheepishly and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Pepper made Mr. Stark go on the grocery run with her and she said that if I didn’t eat by the time she came back, I’d be locked out of the lab for the rest of the week, and I really can’t have that.”

“You’re like Tony,” Harley noted as he cut up some extra tomato. “Genius, sure, but y’all don’t take care of yourselves. Is a BLT alright with you?’

“Hmm?”

“I’m making lunch. No need to thank me.”

Peter’s eyes widened. “You really don’t have to! But if you’re offering, yes, a BLT sounds great.”

“One BLT for Peter Parker coming right up.” As Harley turned on the stove, he looked over at the other boy. Peter was seated at the kitchen table, once again engrossed in his work on the tablet. He was still in his pajamas, Harley realized with a smirk, which were pink and covered in little cherries. “Go change. It’ll be ready when you come back.”

“What?” Peter looked down at himself and blushed. “Right. I’ll be back.”

They ate a quiet lunch together. Peter ate with one hand and messed around with his holographic chemicals with the other. Harley watched Peter with one eye and kept the other on a sketch of the stairs he wanted to build for the treehouse.

It was day three of their little challenge. In just a couple of days, Harley’s opinion of Peter had changed drastically. At first, he had been fiercely jealous of the other boy. Here was a kid who was the same age as him, yet twice the person Harley was. Harley was smart enough; he passed most of his classes with minimal effort and knew his way around a lab, even if some of Tony’s more advanced tech was more than he could handle. Peter, on the other hand, was a genius and he’d probably be smarter than Tony when he was older. He was near the top of his class at some fancy science and technology school, was part of their academic decathlon team, and going to college at MIT, of all places. Harley hadn’t even considered college, not with the way his grades had slipped. Peter was also Spider-Man, a superhero. Peter was a good person with a big heart who saved his city while Harley had beat up men in a back-alley warehouse.

Okay, maybe he was still more than a little jealous of Peter. Even then, it was hard to hate the boy.

“Harley?” He startled out of his thoughts. Peter was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. “You were staring.”

Harley looked away, focusing intently on his half-finished sketch. “No I wasn’t. What are you talking about?”

“You were,” Peter shot back, but he left the matter alone. “Come on, let’s get out of here. I want to do something.”

“Like what? Don’t you have lab stuff to do, like that chemistry mess you’re looking at?”

“What, this?” He held up the tablet. “Web formula, if you want to know. I’m trying to figure out how to make it more compact so I can carry more, but I’ve been working on it since last night and I’ve reached a dead end. I’m sick of it.”

“Why do you have to make the liquid more compact? I don’t got a clue how your web mess works, so sorry if I sound stupid, but what if you found a way to maximize the efficiency of how much you shoot? Like making a thinner but stronger web that has the same effect, but you don’t use as much. Less is more, kind of.”

Peter stared at him with wide eyes, and Harley felt horribly insecure. He should have kept his mouth shut. Anything he came up with would surely have been tested by Peter ages before Harley could even reach the same conclusion, but to his surprise Peter exclaimed, “Yes! You might be onto something. I’ve been looking at this backwards.”

As Peter turned back to his tablet, typing furiously, Harley cleared and washed the dishes. When he turned back to the table  though , Peter had set the tablet down and was watching Harley with his chin in his hand. “You’re staring,” he quipped back with a raised eyebrow.

Instead of getting defensive, Peter just shrugged. “Sorry. I was just waiting for you to finish up, you slowpoke.”

“I resent that comment, but whatever. Why are you waiting for me?”

“So we can go out. Go explore, I mean.”

“Why?”

“You might have given me an idea for the web problem, but my brain is quite literally fried right now. I’ve been awake and in the lab since, like, three o’clock, and I want some sun.”

“You’ll get too much sun. It’s so hot outside.”

Peter leaned back and groaned. “Oh please, Harley. Didn’t you grow up in Tennessee? It’s like, twenty degrees cooler up here for sure.”

“Eighty degrees is still hot,” he grumbled. “Too hot to be wandering around in the woods.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Boo-hoo. Why do you even want me to come with you? You’re allowed to go out on your own, you know.”

“Because, as much as I hate to admit it, you’re not bad company. Come on, please? I’ll even let you take me fishing again.”

“It’s too hot. The fish won’t bite.” Harley crossed his arms and reluctantly said, “Fine. We can go exploring. You’re pushy, you know.”

Peter shot out of his chair and grinned. “Only for you.”

They went exploring, even though it was far too hot to be wandering around in the sun. Harley had stripped off his short-sleeved button-up and used it to wipe the sweat from his forehead, leaving him in a tank top. Peter’s hair was damp at his neck, and his hair was starting to curl in the humidity. “This isn’t the best idea you’ve had.”

“Shut up,” Peter shot back. Harley opened his mouth to say something, but Peter reached out and grabbed his wrist, effectively stopping him from any coherent thought. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Harley snapped. “Not all of us have freaky super hearing.”

Peter didn’t even seem to hear what he said. “Come on. This way.” With the other boy holding onto his arm, it was kind of impossible not to follow as they weaved through a thick patch of bushes. As the trees started thinning out, Harley looked down to see his scratched-up shins and grimaced.

“This better be worth it, Parker. I’ve shed blood and sweat for this, and the tears are coming soon.”

“Listen. You should be able to hear it now.” Harley listened hard. Birds. Leaves. Wind. Water. 

He narrowed his eyes. “Water? That’s not surprising. We literally live next to a lake.”

“Not just water. Even better. Come on!” Peter grinned and tugged on his wrist, which he still would not let go of, and Harley had no other choice but to follow. The other boy’s excitement was contagious and he found himself curious about whatever Peter had discovered.

Harley heard Peter’s gasp before he saw it, and when the other boy stopped suddenly he almost fell over. They were at the edge of a rushing river that stopped suddenly about a yard to their right. It fell off into nothing, creating a roaring sound that sent Harley’s heart racing. The cool mist from the waterfall soaked through his tank top, causing him to shiver.

He looked over at Peter, who was staring at the falling water with a dropped jaw. His curls were plastered to his forehead and his wet t-shirt stuck to his skin. Harley swallowed and looked away. “This is wild.”

Peter nodded. “We should jump it.”

“What?” Harley’s head snapped to the side. Peter was grinning wildly, a spark of mischief in his eyes. “Jump what?”

“The waterfall, obviously.”

Harley leaned over the edge. It was a long drop. A very long drop. “Hell no. You can if you want. You’re Spider-Man. You can shoot your webs and catch yourself and not die, but I’m just a regular person. I’m a sensible person too, and I’m not jumping off a freaking waterfall.”

Peter held up his arms. “No webshooters. Guess that makes me a regular person too, though much less sensible than you. Come on. It’ll be fun!”

“How? It’ll be cold. And scary. I might die, you know, and then you’d have to explain to Tony how you killed his favorite resident.”

“His favorite resident is Morgan. Besides, you won’t die.”

Harley raised an eyebrow and looked and Peter. “And how do you know that?”

Peter smiled that damn smile that hit somewhere deep in Harley’s chest and held out a hand. “Do you trust me?”

Harley stared at the outstretched hand. Of course he didn’t trust Peter, not while he was standing a few steps away from the edge of a waterfall. He looked up at Peter’s face with a negative on his lips, but it faded. Peter’s expression was open, that smile still in place, and he looked into Harley’s eyes, straight into his soul. Harley only knew the kid for three days, but when Peter looked at him like that, he came to a startling realization. “Yes. Yes, I trust you.”

“Good.” Peter’s wink was the only warning he got before his hand was grabbed, and together they plunged off the edge. 

He felt like he was falling forever, like he would never hit the river below, but after long, heart-stopping seconds he did. Peter crashed a moment after Harley, and it was Peter who pulled him up from underwater. It was cold, too cold for water that sat in the summer sun, and Harley was far too aware of Peter’s warm hands, one gripping his hand tightly, the other on his waist.

“You’re crazy,” Harley gasped, shaking water from his hair. He tried to be angry with Peter for dragging him down a waterfall, but as he looked at the boy standing far too close (as usual), he couldn’t. Peter looked so genuinely happy, his head tilted back and grinning widely at the sun, and Harley melted.

Peter looked at him then, bright face inches away from his, and Harley gasped involuntarily. The other boy winked, and for a second Harley felt like he couldn’t breathe. “Only for you.”

With a laugh, Harley shoved Peter away from him as he tread through water to get to  the shore. The other boy stumbled but caught himself, grinning at Harley with a shameless grin. They climbed out of the river and sat by the bank on a sun-warmed rock. In that moment, as Peter dozed off and Harley watched the falling water, he felt happy. Indulging in a soft smile while looking at the sleeping boy next to him, Harley realized this was the happiest he had felt in a while.

  
  
  


Peter wasn’t in bed when Harley woke the next day with a sunburn, mosquito bites, and a killer headache. He was probably in the lab, working with Tony through a nightmare. Bitter jealousy returned with a vengeance as Harley dragged himself out of bed to get some coffee.

It was raining, and while pouring himself a cup of coffee the thunder startled him into dropping and shattering his favorite mug. The day couldn’t get any better. Tired, angry and miserable, Harley grabbed a different mug and an apple before retiring to his treehouse. 

The rain made the air cooler, if a bit more humid, so Harley stayed comfortably in his treehouse all day, still wearing his pajamas. At some point, Pepper brought him dinner and when it became really dark, she returned with a fancy espresso drink and an offer to come back to the cabin. Harley rejected the offer but accepted the drink, an indulgent mix of gelato and espresso that Pepper called affogato. Under the light of an electric lantern, Harley read a book he had found in the living room the week before,  _ The Catcher in The Rye _ , with his drink by his elbow. He was nearly finished, having started it in the morning, when his phone rang.

“Harley Keener,” he said, picking it up without looking at the caller ID.

“Hey champ.” He almost dropped his phone. “I need you to fight tomorrow. Got some big boy from Kentucky tomorrow and we’ve gotta have our best. He ain’t ready for the Harley Hook.”

It was his fight club manager and trainer Gus who was drunk by the sound of it, even though it was only eight o’clock in Tennessee. Chills ran down Harley’s spine.

“Boss, I ain’t in Rose Hill right now. I ain’t been in Tennessee in a while.”

“Come back, kiddo. Where you at? Want your old man to pick you up?”

“I’m real far away from Tennessee, and I ain’t coming back. Not ever.” His mouth was dry, and his face felt hot. He had gotten out of Tennessee, and made a new life in New York, so why was this asshole calling him?

A drunken laugh came from the other end of the phone. “That ain’t true, Harley Keener. You’re a Rose Hill boy through and through. You can try to leave, but your roots are too deep. You’ll come back. They always do.”

“You’re wrong!” Hot tears welled in his eyes as he shouted into the phone. He clenched his fist, in an attempt to stop the tears from falling. “You’re wrong. I’m done, Gus. There’s nothing left there for me. I’ve got a new life, a new family, and I don’t need you calling me up and bothering me no more. I’m done with Tennessee, done with stupid Rose Hill and your stupid illegal fights. You hear me?”

It was silent on the other end as he waited with bated breath. Then he heard the snoring and he saw red. How dare Gus fall asleep on him? Harley was bursting with pent up anger and as much as he wanted to yell some more, there was limited satisfaction to gain from talking to a drunk, passed-out man on the phone. He needed to yell at someone, get his anger out, throw a few punches.

He needed to fight.

The realization hit him like a truck and he fell to his knees with a choked, angry sob. Gus was right. You can take the boy out of Tennessee, you can take the boy out of the fighting ring, but he would always be a country boy whose only accomplishment was a mean knock-out.

“Harley?” He didn’t look up, only felt the anger in his blood intensify at the sound of Peter’s voice. “So you know how you had that idea yesterday about the effective use of web fluid? You were right! That was the best way of going about it and I finished it today. Look, I’m coming up. I want to show you.”

“Don’t,” Harley choked out through tears and a clenched jaw, but he already heard the sound of Peter’s soft landing on the balcony. 

Peter made a soft, confused noise. “Oh, are you okay? Tell me what’s wrong. You can talk to me, you know, about any-”

“Don’t!” Harley looked up, breathing heavily. Peter halted a foot away from him. “Just shut up, Parker, and go away. I don’t need to talk to you. And no one cares about your stupid web fluid, so you can just shut up and leave me the fuck alone.”

There was a tense moment in which they just stared at each other. Then, Peter broke the silence. “Harley?” He sounded so small, so hurt, hurt that Harley had caused, but Harley didn’t care. In fact, it enraged him that Peter could be hurt by such a comment. The boy didn’t know real pain, real shame, and Harley wanted to teach it to him.

“Fight me, Parker.”

“What?”

“Fight me.” Harley grinned maniacally, eyes glinting in the light of the electrical lamp. “Come on, it’s just a little scuffle. You’re Spider-Man, aren’t you? You can probably throw a decent punch or two.”

Peter visibly flinched. “I don’t want to fight you.”

“And why the hell not? Are you scared?”

“What? Of course not. I just don’t want to hurt you.”

Harley laughed. “You can’t hurt me more than I already have been, honey. Besides, I can take it. I don’t know what old man Tony has told you about me, but I can fight. I’m what they call a champion back home. I made a living off of fighting. Give me what you’ve got. I can take it.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” Harley was mad. He had all this energy, all this pent-up anger, and he wanted, no, he needed to get rid of it the only way he knew how. Pretty, perfect Peter was standing right there in front of him, denying him the one thing he needed in that moment and it made him blind with rage.

“No. I’m not going to fight you.” 

Harley didn’t care. He threw the punch anyway. Peter dodged it, and without a second glance at Harley, he shot a web at a nearby tree and swung away. “Coward!” Harley screamed as he watched Peter scramble down the tree. “You’re nothing but a dirty fucking coward.”

Peter’s dark figure stopped for a second and turned to face the treehouse. Harley couldn’t see his face, but he heard the words loud and clear. “Only for you, Harley.”

With that, Harley was alone with his anger, another shattered mug and a coffee-stained book. He kicked the ceramic shards off the edge of his balcony and screamed. He screamed into the night until his throat ached and he stopped shaking. Everyone in the cabin was probably awoken by the noise he was making, but no one came after him. Drained and defeated at last, he sat down in the corner of his treehouse, pulled a blanket around himself, and fell asleep.

  
  
  


Tony woke him up the next morning, bearing a large mug of coffee and a generous serving of pancakes as a peace offering. Miserably, Harley accepted it. He knew he looked rough. He had been in the same pajamas for a couple of days now, his hair was probably a mess and his eyes were surely red. Tony didn’t comment on his appearance, just sat by him and drank out of a mug of his own.

“I’m sorry,” Harley mumbled through a bite of pancake.

Tony shook his head. “It’s not me you should be saying that to, kid.”

“I know.”

“Look. I don’t know what happened, and I’m not going to ask. You tell me if you want to. I’m not going to make you do anything except eat, probably. I just want you to know that I’m proud of you.”

Harley’s head shot up. “What?”

“Don’t interrupt me. I’m trying to be emotionally open.” Tony sighed, setting his mug down on the floor. “I’m proud of you, Harley. You are not the same boy who ran away from Tennessee. You’re a hundred times better, even on the bad days. Sometimes it’s one step forward, two steps back. That’s okay. You’ve got me, you’ve got Pepper, and we’ll help you keep walking. You’re not alone in this, kid.”

“Do you mean it?” The words come out softly, and Harley hates himself for feeling so vulnerable, so weak.

“Every word.” Tony stood up with a groan, collecting their dirty dishes. “Once upon a time, you saved me. Let me save you this time.”

Harley stood up too, following Tony down the ladder. A hesitant smirk formed on his face. “What makes you think I need saving, old man?”

“I just know. We’re connected, remember?”

Harley couldn’t help but smile.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harley's just really working through some stuff in this chapter, mate. 
> 
> Here's chapter three! This will be the last update for a few weeks because I'll be going on vacation and probably won't write/upload anything. Enjoy this! Thanks so much for reading! Leave a comment, if you wish.
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr: bellaxbeatrice


	4. Apologies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Five, Day Six, and Day Seven of The Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge
> 
> OR
> 
> In which Harley tries to cook and Peter tries to pack

When Harley finally emerged from the treehouse, Tony was in the kitchen. While the house did belong to the man on paper, Pepper ruled the household and mandated that Tony be banned from the kitchen. Harley did a double take at the sight. Oh Lord, the man was making omelets. Now he was concerned.

A little known fact about Tony Stark is that his comfort food was omelets. He had nonexistent cooking skills, but it was one of the few things he could cook, though it might take him hours as opposed to the average fifteen minutes or so. For Tony Stark, omelets were also a peace offering. When words of apology failed him, he offered up omelets instead.

“What’s the occasion?” Harley grabbed a peach from the fruit bowl and pulled himself up to sit on the counter next to the stove.

Tony swatted at him with the spatula. “Does there always have to be an occasion for me to cook? And get off the counter, you heathen. You need a shower.”

Admittedly, Harley had been living in a treehouse for thirty-something hours. However, he chose to ignore that fact in favor of annoying Tony. “Omelets mean you done messed up. What happened?”

Tony sighed, turning the stove off. “There was a farmer’s market in town today and Pepper sent me to pick up a few things. The thing is, there was also a petting zoo for some reason? I went over to ask about it, thought about maybe bringing Morgan if they came another day, but they were just visiting for the night. I was about to leave but this one alpaca wouldn’t let me. Kept following me around the market, and I couldn’t just leave the guy!”

“Don’t tell me,” Harley said through a laugh. “You bought the alpaca?”

“I bought the alpaca,” Tony sighed. “Thought maybe it was time for a family pet. Morgan and Peter loved him. Pep, on the other hand, did not.”

Harley was practically doubled over from laughing, only stopping when Tony started swatting at him again with the spatula. He hopped down from the counter to throw away the peach pit and wash his hands. “Where are they, by the way? Peter, Pepper, and Morgan.”

“Well, the thing is, I was so distracted by Gerald that I forgot to, you know, actually buy the things Pepper wanted.”

“You named the alpaca Gerald?” Harley asked, raising an eyebrow.

Tony sniffed. “Yeah, and what about it?”

Harley escaped without a response, leaving a spluttering Tony Stark in his wake. His bedroom door closed behind him, cutting off the rest of Tony’s rambling. With a sigh, Harley flopped onto his bed.

The whiteboard on the door caught his eye, causing his breath to hitch. “Day Five,” it read in Peter’s handwriting. God, Harley had royally messed up. He really should apologize to Peter, but he’d never been good with apologies.

Harley shot off the bed and skidded into the kitchen, startling Tony. “Teach me how to make an omelet.”

Tony gave him a disdainful onceover. “Shower first. Then we’ll cook.”

Harley gave him the finger as he backed away to the bathroom, sending Tony into a laughing fit.

  
  
  


Peter and Pepper had no reason to look as horrified as they did when they returned from the market to see Tony and Harley in the kitchen. It wasn’t even that bad! To be fair, Harley did have eggshells in his hair and Tony was wearing an obscene  _ kiss the cook _ apron. Alright, maybe the kitchen looked like a tornado had gone through it too. Despite this (and the fact that they had gone through three dozen eggs), they managed to scrape together four relatively edible omelets! Harley considered it an absolute win. 

Pepper just sighed, sitting down at the table and placing Morgan in the high-chair beside her. She must be used to this, Harley thought as he watched her fight a smile. 

Peter, on the other hand, still looked absolutely bewildered. He started to unload the groceries as Harley and Tony attempted to tidy up the kitchen. Everything was surely out of place, but at least it was out of the way. Tony shooed Peter out of the kitchen to sit at the table, still wearing a confused expression.

“It’s go time, kiddo,” Tony whispered to Harley. Harley swallowed hard and picked up his two omelets, following Tony to the table.

Tony served Pepper a plate with a dramatic flourish. “Miss Potts,” he said, winking at his wife.

Pepper just laughed, looking at Tony so affectionately that Harley couldn’t help but ache. “It’s a good thing I bought eggs at the market. Are there any left?”

“Of course not.” Tony took his seat, pressing a kiss on Pepper’s cheek then one on Morgan’s head. Just like that, all was forgiven.

Harley, standing in the doorway awkwardly, took a deep breath. Peter was watching him, obviously fighting a smile of his own. Harley all but dropped the plate in front of Peter before hiding his face and digging into his own. He could feel Tony and Pepper’s smothered laughter from across the table.

“Hey, Harley?” Harley looked up, mouth full of omelet. Peter was grinning at him, a forkful of his omelet in hand. “Thanks.”

Harley swallowed. “You too!” he choked out, face immediately bursting into flames. Tony audibly snorted but Harley didn’t see or hear anyone else’s reaction. He was too busy shoving his omelet in his face. 

“Hey, bud, you want to slow down?” Tony said, laughter clear in his tone. Harley shrugged, swallowing the last piece.

“Nope! I’m good. I’ve got places to do, people to go, things to see. Bye!” He all but ran out of the room, slamming his bedroom door behind him.

Harley had never been good with words, had never had a need for them. Fixing and fighting were carried out by an instinctive judgement between wrong and right and the physicality to do the right thing. Communication between a mechanic and his machines wasn’t needed. Communication between a boxer and his competition was nonverbal and usually came in the form of a swing. Harley didn’t need words, but in that moment, he had never wanted better communication skills more. 

What was he supposed to say? A simple “I’m sorry” seemed so insincere, but he couldn’t wax poetic about the ways he messed up and had been messed up. It just wasn’t his style. With a sigh, he threw himself onto the bed. 

Admittedly, hiding in the bedroom was not his best idea. After all, he shared it with Peter, who came knocking a few minutes later. “We’re on dish duty,” he said with an apologetic shrug. Harley groaned, falling back in bed. 

“I’ll be out in a sec,” he called out, muffled by the pillow over his face. The door shut, so he removed the pillow, and stood up, wringing his hands frantically as he paced. 

Harley had never been good with words, but he was good at fixing things. Wasn’t an apology just a way of fixing a relationship? He took a deep breath and turned to face the door. “Day Five” glared back at him.

“Screw this,” he whispered to himself, yanking open the door with way too much force. With quick, determined footsteps, he strode toward the kitchen. He needed to face his faults, whether he wanted to or not.

Peter, elbow-deep in suds and dirty pans, blinked up at him as Harley burst into the kitchen. “Harley Keener, reporting for dish duty?”

“I’m sorry,” Harley blurted. Peter dropped the plate he was holding, barely managing to catch it with the tip of one sticky finger.

“It’s okay?”

“It’s really not. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. Or asked you to fight me. That’s just messed up. And I shouldn’t have called you a coward. You’re not. I mean, come on. You’re Spider-Man! You’ve got to be, like, the bravest person ever. Also, you went fishing with me, even though you’ve never fished before. Trying new things. That’s brave. I don’t know much about you, Peter, but I know you’re not a coward. I’m sorry about calling you one.”

Peter was silent for far too long, in Harley’s opinion. It was kind of terrifying. “I used to be unable to walk away from a challenge. Then I got these powers, and the challenges I faced weren’t as challenging anymore, but a whole new level of challenges was unlocked. I’ve fought supervillains, I’ve fought the  _ Avengers _ . Physically, Harley, you wouldn’t be a challenge. Emotionally? Mentally? Harley, I don’t know what to do about you. You’re the biggest challenge I’ve ever met. A part of me wants to walk away from it. A larger part of me wants to keep going. I know I’m not a coward. Do you know that you’re not one either?”

“The Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge,” Harley said, voice unable to reach above a whisper. “I don’t want to walk away from it either. I guess that makes me a not-coward too.”

“You’re not just a not-coward. You’re brave. Apologizing takes courage. This challenge we’ve set ourselves takes courage in a way too.”

Harley’s head hurt. He wasn’t sure if that was from the sudden build-up of tears he found himself blinking back or an inability to comprehend the idea of being brave. He was always running away from his problems, would rather fix them than accept them. Wasn’t that an act of cowardice, in some way?

“I guess I’ll be brave then,” Harley sighed, approaching Peter and taking the dripping plate from his hands. “Besides, it would be foolish to walk away from a challenge five days in, wouldn’t it?”

“Maybe just a little.” Peter cracked a smile and just like that, the tension in the room abated. “But we’ve always been a little foolish, haven’t we?”

Harley grinned back. “Nah, that’s just you.”

“That’s rude,” Peter gasped dramatically, dipping his hands into the soapy water and flicking it at Harley. 

Harley blinked at Peter for a second, stunned, before flicking water back. “Oh, and  _ that _ wasn’t?”

“You’re so on, Keener,” Peter hissed, grabbing a clean bowl and filling it with water.

Harley reached over and detached the faucet head with a smirk. “Game on, Parker.”

Later, when Tony, Pepper, and Morgan came inside, the dishes still weren’t washed and the kitchen floor was a hazard zone for slipping. Tony could forgive the boys though because both of them were on the ground laughing, unable to stop even when Pepper scolded them. It was the most carefree Tony had seen either boy look in a long time.

  
  
  


Peter was in the kitchen when Harley woke up and stumbled tiredly to the (thankfully) still-warm coffee pot. As he poured himself a mug, he watched with a smile as Peter fed Morgan apple slices in between stealing some for himself. The world was quiet on that moment; all was well.

“Coffee?” Harley asked, gesturing with the pot. 

Peter looked up with a surprised expression. “Sure. Milk and sugar, please.”

Harley snorted as he grabbed another mug. “Milk  _ and _ sugar? I take it back. You are a coward.”

“Unlike the rest of this family, I actually drink coffee for taste, not to overdose on caffeine.”

“And here I thought you had a sense of adventure,” Harley sniffed, reluctantly stirring in milk and sugar. “You’re not living if you’re not living on the edge.”

“Living on the edge doesn’t always mean living on the edge of a caffeine overdose.”

“Yeah, but it’s more fun that way.”

Peter burst out laughing, making Harley crack a smile. “You’re impossible.”

“Oh, I know.” Harley sighed, pulling himself up on the counter. “And it’s only day six.”

Peter groaned. “Only twenty-four left to go.”

  
  
  


Harley really needed to get rid of the rope ladder for the treehouse. Pepper, bless her soul, was climbing it with one hand, the other holding two plates of lunch. Harley helplessly sat at the top, shouting apologies and encouragement at her.

“It’s fine,” Pepper said with a dismissive wave. “Having to run away from Obidiah Stane in heels taught me to be ready for anything, including climbing a rope ladder one-handed.”

When she was in reach, Harley reached out and grabbed the plates. “Still. Sorry about that. I could have come down for lunch.”

“Harley, it’s fine. Besides, I wanted to see what you’ve been working on.”

Harley stretched out his arms, gesturing to the space around him. One wall was coated in drying primer. The shelf below the window held two books and his electric lantern, and there was a nest of blankets in a corner. “It’s a work in progress.”

Pepper smiled, grabbing a blanket from the pile and spreading it out on the balcony. “I’ve always lived in the city. Not necessarily New York City, but I grew up in various urban areas, never having seen the stars, never having heard absolute quiet before. When Tony suggested moving to the middle of nowhere, I was kind of skeptical, but he had already bought the cabin, so I thought, ‘Why not?’ The cabin looked a lot like this when I first saw it: unpainted, unfurnished, no electricity. It was a work in progress, but now it’s my home.” She paused, looking Harley straight in the eyes. It was disconcerting, the way he felt like she was looking right through him. “I hope this can be home for you too.”

“It is.” The swiftness of his reply startled Harley himself. “When I was driving up here, I thought I’d end up in a penthouse in New York City. Imagine my surprise when I realized Tony lived in a cabin in the wilderness. I’m a country kid. I love the country, but I think I’d like to visit the city one day.”

Pepper smiled. “It’s a six-hour drive. Maybe we can all go before Peter leaves.”

Harley smiled back. “I think I’d like that.”

  
  
  


As it turned out, Harley didn’t have to wait that long to go to New York City.

“Mr. Stark, Ned and MJ are insisting on seeing me this weekend. Is there any way I can go?” Peter asked during dinner.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “You just spent a month in Europe together. Aren’t you sick of each other by now?”

Peter ducked his head. “Well, no. I kind of, maybe, miss them, actually.”

“Harley will drive you.” Harley, who had been in the middle of a drink, choked. Pepper patted him on the back as she continued. “There’s no sense in bothering Happy when we have a perfectly capable driver right here.”

“No, no, it’s okay! I can drive myself. Maybe borrow one of your cars?”

Tony shook his head vehemently. “You don’t even have your license yet, and your permit doesn’t count. Besides, you’re a menace on the streets, kid.”

“It’s fine,” Harley said when Peter’s face dropped. “I can take you”

Peter instantly perked back up. “Oh, Harley! You would? That’s great! Are you sure? I mean, you totally don’t have to if you don’t want to, but-”

“I want to,” he interrupted with a shrug. “It’s not a big deal. Besides, I’ve got things I want to do in the city.”

“Great,” Tony said, clapping his hands together. “You guys can stay the weekend. We have a penthouse in Manhattan. FRIDAY will give you the directions. I took the liberty of putting her in your car, Harley. Hope you don’t mind.”

“You what?” Harley yelped. “You messed with my car?”

“Oh, you do mind. Whoops.”

“It’s fine,” Harley grumbled. “I just wish you would’ve told me.”

“It slipped my mind. Also, you and Peter are banned from dish duty for the time being.”

“Yes!” Peter reached out to Harley for a high-five. Harley grinned and reached across the table.

Tony sighed. “And just for that, Peter, you’re doing the dishes tonight. With me, since you and Harley are an ineffective team.”

“I resent that,” Harley said, chucking a blueberry at the man. Tony’s dumbstruck face would be one of his favorite memories for years to come.

  
  
  


Peter was a horrible packer. They left for New York City in t-minus eight hours, and Peter hadn’t packed yet, though it was not for a lack of trying. Harley’s suitcase lay at the foot of his bed, zipped up and ready to go. On the other hand, Peter’s suitcase was lying open on the ground, clothes balled up and thrown haphzardly in the general area of the suitcase. Harley sighed, leaning back in his bed and flipping the page in his book.

The door cracked open and Peter poked his head in. “Harley, have you seen my toothbrush?”

“For the thirteenth time, the answer is no. Why don’t you just ask Tony for a spare one?”

“They’re out of spare toothbrushes!” Peter wailed, entering their room and flopping on the bed. It took every ounce of Harley’s willpower not to laugh.

Admittedly, Harley was the cause for a small percentage of Peter’s chaotic packing job. Peter was a horrible packer, but Harley had hidden his toothbrush and all of the spare toothbrushes in the house. 

“Check the fruit bowl,” he replied, not looking up from his book. “If it’s not there, check the coffee pot?”

“Why the hell would my toothbrush be in the fruit bowl or coffee pot?”

“That’s a question for the tooth fairy.”

“I hate you,” Peter grumbled. “You’re the worst tooth fairy ever.”

Harley looked up. “Who said anything about me being the tooth fairy?”

“You’re not slick, Harley.”

“Your toothbrush is in the flower vase,” Harley admitted with a sigh. Peter had been looking for the better part of an hour, and Harley was honestly starting to feel a little bad about it.

Peter stared at him in disbelief for a few moments before shrugging. “I’ll hold you to that. If it’s not there, there will be hell to pay.”

“Fair enough,” Harley conceded. “Hey, will you give me the grand tour when we get there? I’ve never been, obviously, and you probably know the city better than anyone else.”

“Yeah, of course! You can meet Ned and MJ, and we’ll all show you around! It’ll be a great time.”

Harley couldn’t help but smile at Peter’s enthusiasm. “Thanks, now finish packing. You’re a mess.”

Peter groaned, hauling himself off the bed. “I resent that.”

“By the way, your toothbrush is actually in the refrigerator!” Harley yelled once Peter was safely out the door. 

“Harley Keener, I swear to God!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I haven't abandoned this fic! Here's the long-awaited chapter four. If you're reading this, thanks so much for sticking with this story! I appreciate you all so much.
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr: @parknerplease (changed my username!)


	5. Tradition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day Eight of the Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge

“Jesus, Peter, what did you put in here? A stack of bricks?” Harley let the bag drop into the trunk of his car with a soft grunt, shooting a glare at Peter. 

Peter shrugged. “I offered to help you load the car, but you refused.”

“I’ll have you know that I am an independent person, and I can load my own car, thank you very much.” Harley shot back. “Come on. Ready to go?”

With a nod, Peter yanked the passenger open hard enough to make Harley cringe a little as he pulled his own door open. Harley rolled down the window when Tony and Pepper came out of the house to stand on the front porch to say their goodbyes, and in a few minutes they were off.

“So what did you want to do in the city?” Peter asked, turning to face Harley. 

Harley shrugged. “Promise you won’t make fun of me if I tell you?”

“Promise,” Peter replied softly with a smile that Harley caught out of the corner of his eye.

“I’ve never actually been to New York before. Like, real New York. You know, the whole ‘New York, New York’ deal. Thought it would be cool to explore the city while you catch up with your friends.”

Harley could practically hear the way Peter’s face lit up. “You’ve never been to New York? Like, at all?”

“What part of country-boy Keener don’t you understand?”

“I guess I can’t really judge you. I’ve only been out of New York twice. Hey, what if I gave you a tour? I’m like, an expert about New York. We could still see all the touristy bits if you really want to, but I can give you the real tour of New York.”

Harley hid a smile at Peter’s enthusiasm. “Maybe.”

Peter grinned. “I’ll take maybe.”

“Get your feet off the dash. Were you raised in a barn?”

“Weren’t you, country boy?” Peter quipped back. Harley glared at him out of the corner of his eye until Peter conceded with a sigh.

“Not a barn. A garage.” Peter shot Harley a questioning look. “I mean, we lived in a house, but I really grew up in the garage. It’s more of a glorified shed, I guess. I spent practically every waking hour, and some of my sleeping ones, in the shed. It’s where my workshop was.”

“Is that why you like working outside?”

“Yeah, I guess. Tony took me down to the lab a couple of times, but it’s insanely high-tech. It all kind of goes over my head. Maybe I could figure it out one day, but I’d rather stick to my metal and wood.”

Peter shrugged. “Do what makes you happy. If you want, I could help you out with some stuff in the lab?”

“Maybe.” Harley really didn’t feel any need to show off how useless he was at, well, everything. “What about you? Honestly, what can’t you do? Your web fluid is some biochem brilliance, and you’ve got to be insanely good at physics if you swing around all day.”

Peter flushed. “I can’t do history. It’s interesting, but it kind of all blends together in my mind. I think I’m going to major in Biological Engineering, but I’m not sure yet. I have until the end of sophomore year anyway.”

Harley swallowed hard. “Tony’s so proud of you. Wouldn’t shut up about it before you got here.”

“Still won’t shut up about it,” Peter laughed. Harley couldn’t bring himself to join in. 

They end up in a coffee shop half-way through their six-hour drive. It’s quiet just before the afternoon rush, nearly deserted because it’s unfortunately located just down the street from a Starbucks. Harley had staunchly refused to step foot into the chain, and Peter agreed because he was the champion of the little guy and loved his local small businesses. It stressed Harley out, sometimes, how good Peter seemed to be.

“Here’s your disgusting black iced coffee,” Peter said, approaching with their drinks and food. “And here’s your slightly less disgusting zucchini muffin.”

“You’re the one who dared me to order it, asshat.”

“You’re the fool who agreed to the dare.”

“Touche.” They sat in silence for a moment, comforted by the sounds of brewing coffee and the clacking keyboard of the one other customer in the corner. Out of the corner of his eye, Harley watched Peter as he sipped on a frappuccino and ate the sandwich he bought. 

Harley then realized that he has never been so comfortable doing nothing with another person before. Before he could think that’s ridiculous, Peter cleared his throat.

“If you could go back in time and fix the past so that your sister doesn’t die, would you?”

“The hell kind of question is that?” Just like that, his comfort was gone, and he thought of his first long drive up to New York when all he could feel was overwhelming despair.

“You don’t have to answer,” Peter replied with a shrug, all fake nonchalance.

Somewhere in North Carolina, he had accidentally run a red light, and although he had never gotten caught by the cops, he had almost slammed into the median in a desperate attempt to stop too late. He remembered thinking that he almost wished he had crashed.

“If I could have her back,” Harley whispered, “I would. In a heartbeat, no questions asked.”

Peter went silent at that, still in a way Harley had never seen from the fidgety boy before. “You loved her.”

“Still do. More than anything.” There was another heartbeat of silence. “If you could have your parents back, or your Uncle Ben, would you want to?”

“No.” Harley almost choked at the swiftness of the reply, like a dart that landed somewhere around his heart, in a place that wasn’t really his. “Whatever happened, happened, and it brought me here. And this isn’t so bad, is it?”

It wasn’t, but that didn’t change a thing. “Why did you ask?”

Peter stared at him for a moment. “Why did you?” Harley said nothing. “I don’t know, actually. Just thinking. You can learn a lot about a person, if only you just ask.”

“What did you learn about me?”

“That you have a bigger heart than you like to let people see. Bigger than maybe you give yourself credit for.”

They spend the rest of the drive to Manhattan in silence.

The penthouse was Harley’s best dream and worst nightmare. It was luxurious but gaudy, spacious but empty, and an absolute ghost town. He said town because, with six bedrooms, it was basically a very tiny, one-floor town. 

Even city slicker Peter was walking through the apartment with a sort of quietly horrified amazement. “This is sick,” he said, and Harley thought that even Peter didn’t know which definition of the word he meant.

“That’s Tony Stark, the billionaire, for you,” Harley said with a sigh, dropping his bag on the floor and flopping onto one of the clean white couches. It might be otherworldly, but it was technically theirs for the weekend, and Harley was damn tired after driving for six hours. He closed his eyes.

Peter at some point must have turned around and seen him half-conscious on the sofa because he kicked at his foot. “Nope. Up you get. We’ve got dinner with my friends today. Time for you to meet the crew.”

“You go ahead,” Harley groaned. “I’m tired. I’ll just order up a pizza later or something.”

“Nope. Come on, Ned’s dying to meet you.”

“I’ve already exposed myself enough today, I don’t have energy to meet new people.”

“Don’t worry, we won’t do the whole soul-sharing thing again. MJ hates that stuff more than you do.”

“Impossible,” he said, but he got up. He was hungry anyway, despite having eaten the whole zucchini muffin from earlier. “Dinner better be at some place good.”

Peter grinned. He promised, “Oh, it’s the best.”

The best that New York via Peter Parker had to offer turned out to be Junior’s in Brooklyn. “Yeah, yeah, I know. It’s touristy, but I’m guilty of that sort of thing. And yeah, it’s in Brooklyn, but I like it better than the Manhattan ones, so if I go to New York City Hell for that sacrilege, it’ll be worth it.”

Harley liked the way Peter’s Queens accent came out a little stronger in the city.

Peter’s friends were already there by the time Peter had wrangled Harley through the Subway. (Really, it had been a joint effort in taking as much time as possible. Peter spent ten minutes searching for his MetroCard before giving up, and Harley was useless at using the dispenser machine.) 

Ned looked up first and launched himself out of the booth to hug Peter before they began their elaborate handshake. MJ watched them with a soft expression that hardened as soon as she saw Harley looking at her. He gave her a smile. He knew what it was like.

She didn’t return the smile, but she let him sit by her on the booth, and Peter would later tell him that it was as good as a hug.

“Introduce the new kid, Parker,” MJ had said, once she had given Peter a hug of her own. Well, she hadn’t given him one. He’d taken her in his arms forcefully, and she grudgingly let him. It was hard to say no to Peter Parker sometimes.

“Oh! This is Harley Keener. He’s from Tennessee, but now he’s living with Mr. Stark in the cabin.”

“Dude! That’s so cool. How do you know Tony Stark?” Ned chimed in. He looked like Peter, with that same wide-eyed fascination. Harley decided immediately that he liked him. 

“He crashed into my garage,” he replied because that was his go-to response. It got people’s attention. “It was after the Mandarin thing when his house got blown up and people thought he was dead. I was like twelve at the time. He crash landed in Tennessee and ended up on my doorstep at like ass o’clock in the morning, and now I live in his house.”

“It’s very on-brand for Mr. Stark, don’t you think?” Peter said. It took the attention off of Harley, and for that, he was grateful. 

Harley made up for it by letting Peter order for him. MJ raised an eyebrow at it, but she was good at not bringing things up that would make Harley uncomfortable. He liked her even more for it and let her steal one of his potato pancakes. 

“This is a hashbrown,” he had told Peter when the order came. The other boy scoffed and barely spared him a glance, digging into his sandwich.

“Don’t be rude. It’s a potato pancake.” Harley didn’t say anything after that. He was too busy shoving the not-hashbrown in his mouth.

They took a Junior’s cheesecake to go. Harley was absolutely stuffed, but he wouldn’t say no to some cheesecake - not when it was supposedly world-famous and also sworn on by Peter Parker. 

“Where are we going?” Harley asked, when the four of them stumbled out of the restaurant, full of food and the warmth of company. Even Harley had to admit it had been a while since he hung out with good people his own age, and it was nice. Overwhelmingly nice.

“Brooklyn Bridge,” MJ answered, falling in step with Harley as Peter and Ned lagged behind, engrossed in conversation and easily distracted by anything and everything. “It’s tradition.”

“Junior’s Cheesecake and Brooklyn Bridge are the only things good about Brooklyn,” Peter called up at them. MJ made a noise of affront. “And MJ. She might live in Manhattan now, but she was born in Brooklyn.”

“That’s why I hate him,” she told Harley, deadpan. “He’s from Queens.”

They ended up all sprawled together on a picnic blanket from Peter’s backpack on the Empire Fulton Ferry Lawn. Even Harley, with his mild touch aversion, found himself with his head on Peter’s stomach and his legs in Ned’s lap as he finished his second slice of cheesecake. Peter had his own head in MJ’s lap, the only one of them still upright as she carded her hands through Peter’s hair. Harley was only mildly jealous, which was a delusional thought. He just wanted to feel if Peter’s Prince Charming hair was as fluffy as it looked.

“I missed you guys,” Peter spoke up. “Not you, Harley, because we live together, but Ned and MJ.”

Harley let out a huff of laughter. 

“We missed you too, punk,” MJ said in that same grudgingly loving tone she always used with Peter and Ned. “They’re like lost puppies,” she had told Harley on the walk to the bridge. “You kind of have to love them.”

“Y’all should come stay at the cabin,” Harley said. Peter almost sat up, but MJ shoved him back down. Ned, his torso free of any other person’s care, did sit up. Harley nudged him with his foot instead. “I mean it. There’s not really enough room in the cabin. Me and Peter already share a room, but we could take the treehouse, and y’all could take the bedroom. We could make it work.”

“You have a treehouse?”

“That’s a great idea!”

“We can’t.” 

That last one came from MJ. At Peter and Ned’s looks of deflation, she looked mildly apologetic. “Well, at least I can’t. I’ve got my internship.”

“That’s right,” Peter said, with an unmistakable look of pride. “She’s with The New York Times,” he explained to Harley.

“That’s great!” MJ gave him a small smile. “Sorry you can’t come visit though. What about you, Ned?”

The other boy shook his head. “I’ve just realized I can’t either. I don’t have a fancy job like MJ-”

“It’s just an internship,” she murmured. “It’s not even paid.”

“But my cousin’s coming over this weekend. She’s going to be staying for the summer, and I think she’s taking a semester at Midtown. She’s gonna be a sophomore.”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Peter chimed in. “Sucks that you can’t come over, but we don’t mind visiting, do we, Harley?”

“Speak for yourself, Mr. I-Can-Basically-Fly-But-I-Only-Have-A-Learner's-Permit. You’re not the one who had to drive six hours straight.” Peter pouted. “Of course I don’t mind, though. Y’all are great.”

It was the closest thing to a compliment Harley had said in a while. He almost had forgotten how it felt.

They stayed out on the lawn until it’s 4 a.m. Harley wasn’t sure how he managed to stay awake, but it was probably something to do with the feeling of human contact and the endless amount of laughter. (There were also the Red Bulls MJ had gotten for them from somewhere, and that might have played a really big role.)

Either way, Harley was only half awake. He had MJ’s head on his shoulder, and he was leaning his own on top of hers, and he was content to stay quiet like she was, the incessant chatter of the other two boys enough familiar background noise to make their silence still feel comfortable.

At 4 a.m., MJ jostled him mostly awake. She stood up and held a hand out to him, so he let her pull him up. “Where are we going?”

“Brooklyn Bridge,” she said again, hooking her arm through his. Peter would later tell Harley that MJ was usually never that touchy.

“We’re kindred spirits,” Harley would reply back.

“You said that last time,” Harley told MJ, as they trailed behind Peter and Ned.

“Well, I wasn’t really lying. This is part of the Brooklyn Bridge Park. But we’re going to the actual bridge now.”

“It’s 4 a.m.”

“It’s tradition.”

“Y’all have weird traditions.”

“You’re weird,” Peter called over his shoulder. Damn his super spider hearing. Harley made a face.

Tradition turned out to be watching the sunrise from Brooklyn Bridge. Harley didn’t mean just from the walkway. That happened to be too tame for Spider-Man and his Lost Folks. Part of waiting until 4 a.m. to walk the Brooklyn Bridge was for the cover of near desertion because Peter webbed them all up to the middle of the bridge, and they leaned against the flagpole and against each other and finished off their Red Bulls until the sun rose.

Harley had seen a good handful of sunrises in his lifetime. Tony might not be his biological father, but Harley still had that same manic energy that forced him to pull all-nighters until he finished what he needed to. The window in his garage faced east, and Harley had once thought that there would never be a more beautiful sight than the fresh morning light glinting off a shiny new contraption on his work table. 

He was wrong, and in his wrongness, he felt a sort of vindictive joy.

There was really nothing more beautiful than sunrise from the top of the Brooklyn Bridge, Ned’s head on his shoulder, MJ’s hand tucked between both of his, and Peter’s arm around them all. The four of them let their half-minded chatter fall away, choosing to watch the morning break in a sort of reverential silence, and Harley’s heart felt two times too big for his body.

When she got sick, Abbie started reading a lot. Harley hadn’t spent much time with her in those years after the diagnosis, but he remembered coming home to her, asleep with her head in her book, pillow tucked under her arm to support herself. The lamp was always on in their room, but neither Harley nor their Ma could complain about the growing electricity bill. 

Abbie hadn’t liked poetry all that much, Harley remembered suddenly, but she did sort of like one poet: Mary Oliver. She copied those poems into a little notebook she once had used for school. Harley had left it, along with most of Abbie’s belongings, with their Ma in the empty house, but for the first time, he wished he hadn’t.

A line came unbidden to his head. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

MJ answered without hesitation, “I plan to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, the way I see it.”

“I plan to love,” Ned chimed in, “as generously and thoroughly as possible.”

“I plan to fight and to never give up on my vision of a better world, where all the people I love are safe,” Peter said, quieter than Harley had ever heard him.

And finally, Harley said, “I plan to live without regrets and to let go of my past and see only the future, bright as the morning sun today.”

Their new, contemplative silence stretches over them like a warm blanket. For Harley, it smells of coffee and candle smoke and home.

“We’re a bunch of saps, aren’t me?” MJ said. She didn’t even sound upset about it.

At Harley’s side, Ned shook with laughter, and around him, Peter replied with a smile, “Yes, yes we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lovely commenter reminded me that I have this story to write, and inspired and driven by a need to procrastinate, I started writing again. It's been a while, hasn't it? It's good to see these characters again. I missed them. If you're still reading this, thanks for sticking it out with me! I promise I'll update again. I will see this story finished, I promise.
> 
> The line Harley speaks is from "The Summer Day" by Mary Oliver, my favorite poet. I wrote another fic inspired by her poetry if you want to check it out! It's "My Work is Loving the World."
> 
> Catch me on my (inactive, but who knows? maybe I'll be active again) Tumblr: @parknerplease


	6. Settlement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Days Nine and Ten of the Thirty Days of You and Me Challenge
> 
> OR
> 
> Harley buys a motorcycle, and Peter shows him what home is like

Harley had always described himself as a lone wolf. He didn’t need other people. The people (person) he loved always had something tragic happen to them. He preferred being alone, really. He liked the solitude.

The thing is, it had been a while since he fell asleep in a bed in a room by himself. 

Okay, that was a lie too. His room in the Starks’ cabin had been just his for weeks before Peter came, but for some reason, this was different. Harley lay in his bed in the penthouse, and it was absolutely silent. Soundproofing, maybe. It wasn’t totally uncommon for a billionaire in the city. The cabin had a more homey feel. The building settled. It creaked. He could sometimes hear Tony snoring or Morgan crying in the middle of the night. 

Morning had come and nearly gone by the time the four kids had piled into the penthouse after watching the sunrise. They had agreed not to take the subway on a beautiful summer morning like that, so they stumbled to the penthouse - it was the closest place - through the streets like drunks. Of course, it was Saturday in New York City, and for that reason, no one looked twice at them, even as they made idiots of themselves on the sidewalks of the city.

A glance at the StarkWatch Harley had finally gotten from Tony told him it was nearing ten. So he had gotten maybe two hours of sleep. Not his worst night. He stumbled out of his room, deciding to make a coffee and maybe some brunch for when the rest of them woke up.

He wasn’t the only one awake, it seemed. The coffee machine was already going by the time he stepped into the kitchen, and there was Peter standing by, his Spider-Man mask lying on the counter by the toaster.

“Holy Jesus,” Harley said, and he wasn’t sure why. Peter jumped about three feet in the air. “Wait, what? How did I startle you? You fucking Spider-Man. Sometimes I forget that.”

“Gee, thanks,” Peter shot back, getting two mugs out of the cupboard. “It’s not like I webbed you up to the Brooklyn Bridge like six hours ago.”

“Yeah, but you weren’t wearing your spandex when you did it, so it doesn’t count.”

“How original. You get that one from Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah, well, he’s the closest thing I ever had to a dad, so I guess you could say it’s in my blood.”

Peter went silent at that. Harley looked up from the cutting board in alarm.

“Shit,” Harley said in blunt realization. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize-”

“No,” it’s fine,” Peter said with a sigh, like his body was settling back into place and he remembered how to move. “It’s like you said. You didn’t realize. I have weird triggers I guess, though I hate calling them triggers. It’s just normal fucking grief, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t mean it sucks any less,” Harley said, voice softening in a way he hadn’t been sure he was capable of.

Peter shot a smile, strained but there. “No, it doesn’t.”

They continued preparing a meal in silence. Peter, true to his word, could make a mean batch of scrambled eggs, and Harley made French toast. By the time they had finished cooking, the coffee pot was already empty.

“I think we have a problem,” Harley said, peering into the empty pot, like freshly brewed coffee would spring yet again from its depths.

“You have a problem,” Peter retorted from where he was setting the table. “You’re the one who drank most of it. Make some more. I’m going to go wake Ned up.”

“Not MJ?” Harley asked.

Peter smiled too innocently for it to actually have good intentions. “You can do that.”

Luckily, it turned out that Harley didn’t have to. As soon as Peter disappeared into the hallway leading to the bedrooms, MJ stumbled into the kitchen wearing Ned’s sweatshirt from the night before. She was pulling her hair into a messy bun but stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the spread Harley and Peter had made. “I could get used to this,” she said. “Pour me a coffee, Keener.”

“Do it yourself,” he snapped back, but he pulled a mug from the cupboard anyway. “Milk or sugar?”

MJ made a face. “Neither. I’m not a heathen.”

“Oh thank God,” Harley said, placing the steaming mug in front of her. “Making Peter’s coffee is a nightmare. Did you know that he puts both milk and sugar in his coffee? It’s sacrilege.”

“Don’t make fun of my coffee,” Peter said, walking back into the kitchen, Ned a couple of steps behind them. “Besides, I’ve had enough. Do we have any tea?”

“I’m not your barista.” 

“No, but you drank an entire fucking pot of coffee, so really, you’re the only one out of us who should have enough energy to go rifling through the cupboards for some tea.”

“And you put enough sugar in your coffee to give you a sugar boost.” Harley went and found the tea anyway. “Anything for you, Ned?”

“Tea, please, Harley. You’re great.”

“At least someone in this house appreciates me,” Harley grumbled, plugging the electric kettle in. 

MJ, who had watched the entire spectacle unfold over her morning coffee, finally piped up, “Yeah, I could definitely get used to this.”

Even Harley couldn’t hold back a smile at that.

  
  
  


Despite the pot of coffee he had drank, Harley still managed to fall asleep as soon as he had stumbled back to his room to get clothes for a shower. It was well into the afternoon when he finally woke up, groggy from the weird sleeping hours he kept. Yeah, he was relatively used to weird hours, but weeks of living in the domesticity of the Stark cabin had made him almost normal.

Surprisingly, when Harley finally entered the common area - living room? - after a shower, feeling much better than before, only Ned was left in the penthouse. “Where is everybody?”

Ned looked up from his computer and smiled when he saw Harley. “Oh thank God. You’re alive.”

Harley barked out a laugh, coming around to settle on the couch next to Ned. “Yeah, I’m alive. But where’s everyone else?”

“Peter went to see his aunt, and I think MJ went to the office. Or maybe she went to see her family, I’m not entirely sure. She can be very cryptic sometimes.”

Harley hummed in agreement. He understood the feeling. “What about you? Got any plans?”

Ned shrugged. “Corporate espionage? Peter dared me when we first got back from Europe to hack into Oscorp’s database, so it’s kind of become a pet project of mine. I was planning on staying here until you and Peter left, kicked me out, or my parents needed me back home.”

“I don’t think either of us have plans to kick you and MJ out, for as long as you’d like to stay,” Harley replied, Southern hospitality in full swing. “Anyway, Peter promised to show me around the city, but he’s currently preoccupied, so what do you say? Want to take this country boy on a walk around town?”

Ned eyed him critically, a ghost of a smile already forming on his face. He was as readable as Peter, if not more so. Harley really liked that about him. “I probably won’t do as well as Spider-Man himself, but I guess I could show you a couple of things.”

“Perfect.”

“Anything in particular you want to see? We should probably plan out a walking route. Maximum efficiency.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Harley said, his own grin forming. 

Ned looked at him with apprehension. “You look like Peter when he gets a bad idea in his head. It usually involves something stupid and probably dangerous.”

Harley just smiled. “Come on, Chair-Boy. We’ve got things to do, places to see.”

“It’s Guy in the Chair, not Chair Boy,” Ned grumbled. He followed Harley anyway.

  
  
  


“No. Absolutely not,” Ned said, staring at Harley in horror.

“Oh, come on, Ned! This is absolutely not the worst thing you’ve done. You’re friends with Peter, for heaven's sake,” Harley quipped back. He gave his best attempt at puppy dog eyes. It was probably really unconvincing on him.

Ned shook his head. “Yeah, but Peter never rode a motorcycle before.”

Harley had bought a motorcycle. The garage in Queens was the first place Harley had dragged Ned. One of his trainers at the fight club had a motorcycle, and he had taught Harley how to drive. It always made Harley’s day when he brought it to the Shed for fix-ups. Harley had never had a motorcycle of his own, but God, how he wanted one. With Tony’s allowance, he finally could.

“It’ll be perfectly fine! I can drive a motorcycle very safely. We’ll wear helmets. I even brought an extra jacket for you!” Ned looked slightly more convinced at that, so Harley pressed on. “Walking in the New York City heat is torture. Subway’s even worse. Traffic’s a bitch. What better way to get around the city than on a motorcycle?”

Ned sighed. “If you crash, I’ll kill you.” He strapped the helmet on.

Harley grinned, pushing the visor of his own helmet down. “I’m counting on it. Hold on tight.”

  
  
  


As it turned out, Ned was a great tour guide, and despite his initial reluctance, even he had to admit that the motorcycle was both cool and convenient.

“Peter’s going to kill you, you know,” Ned said, as he and Harley walked to the penthouse from the garage. 

Harley scoffed, though it came out a little muffled due to the churro in his mouth. He swallowed. “He has no room to talk. It’s no more dangerous than swinging from hundred-story buildings.”

“Touche,” Ned sighed, as the elevator opened.

Peter and MJ were already home (and when did Harley start thinking of the penthouse with the four of them as home?). Peter’s eyes lit up as soon as he saw the churro bag in Ned’s hands. “Churros!” he yelled, launching himself at Ned and snatching up the bag. “And from my favorite place? You’re awesome, dude! You take Harley there?”

Ned said something in assent, and Harley tried to sneak into his room to drop the helmets in his hands off. MJ, of course, wouldn’t let him. “What’s that you got, stealth man? Helmets?”

Harley sighed. “Yeah.” Peter whipped around to look at him.

“What do you need helmets for?” Peter asked, eyes slightly narrowed.

Before Harley could reply, Ned exposed him. “Harley bought a motorcycle!”

Peter’s jaw dropped. MJ snorted. “Please tell me you bought a Harley Davidson,” she said in amusement.

Harley threw a helmet at her head, but disappointingly, she caught it. “No. I’m not a damn cliche.”

“You bought a motorcycle?” Peter asked, his expression both bewildered, fascinated, and concerned. Harley wondered, not for the first time, if he had really gotten to know Peter so well in the week he had known him or if Peter was always that readable.

“Yeah, I bought a motorcycle. They’re cool, and I know how to drive one. Ask Ned. He can tell you that I drive safely and I use a helmet. And, not that anyone cares, but it’s not a Harley Davidson. It’s a Ducati Streetfighter.”

“Because none of us know what that means,” Ned interrupted, “let me tell you. It’s cool as shit. And it’s red, gold, and black, so very on-brand for Tony Stark’s ward or whatever Harley is.”

MJ snorted again. Peter raised an eyebrow. “You got a red and gold motorcycle?”

“It’s red, gold, and  _ black _ ,” Harley replied. “Besides, I thought Tony - and Pepper, really, who I’m more worried about - would be more okay with it if it was in Iron Man colors. He likes that sort of thing.”

Peter cracked a smile. “You’re just an Iron Man fan. Admit it.”

“Now who sounds like Tony?” Harley snapped back, but he returned a smile all the same. “I don’t know about y’all, but I’m starving. What’s for dinner, city slickers?”

  
  
  


The four of them came back home late at night, tired enough to peel off to their bedrooms and drop to sleep without much further ado. Harley went to bed happy and warm from the company again and thought that he’d like to get used to it. He and Peter were leaving tomorrow in the afternoon, and to Harley’s surprise, he found that he was incredibly saddened by the thought.

Hours later, just before dawn, Harley woke up. The room was absolutely silent, and Harley absolutely hated it. He couldn’t go back to sleep like he usually did if he was awake at any point before sunrise, so he stumbled out of bed and into the kitchen.

Peter was already awake - or maybe he had never gone to sleep - freshly showered with a cup of sugar-and-milk coffee in front of him. He looked up with a smile as Harley walked in. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“No,” he sighed, reaching for the coffee pot. “You?”

Peter shrugged. “Coupl’a hours. I went out Spider-Manning when the rest of you were asleep, but I slept a bit when I got back. Couldn’t stay asleep though. That happens sometimes in the city.”

Harley peered at him. “Then why do you stay?”

“It’s home,” Peter replied.

The concept was a little strange to Harley, who had spent most of his life praying to get out of Tennessee. He’d never really felt at home, but then he remembered the cabin, where Tony’s mess and Pepper’s cleanliness crashed in a weird combination that was very distinct, and he remembered the penthouse’s other two occupants, still asleep but would soon join them for breakfast. So yeah, maybe he sort of understood that now.

“Ned showed you around a bit yesterday, didn’t he?” Peter asked as Harley settled into the chair next to him. “We’ll be back, but was there anything else you wanted to see before we left?”

And for some reason, Harley thinks of his Mama. There was a large frame in her room, one of the few indulgences he ever saw her have, containing a print-out of a painting that Harley couldn’t remember the name of. It had a young girl in it, lying in a meadow, reaching out towards a house in the distance. “It’s in a museum in New York City,” she told him once, when he was young and hadn’t met Tony Stark and still listened to her stories. “MoMA, they call it. One day, when we have enough money, I’ll take you and Abbie there.”

Except they never did have enough money, and Abbie got sick and died, and that was that. Harley swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Can we go to MoMA?”

“Of course,” Peter said. He looked more closely at Harley. “You alright?”

“Fine,” he replied because there was no other way of replying. He was blessedly saved by MJ coming into the kitchen.

“No Continental breakfast this time?” she asked, reaching for the coffee pot. 

Harley smiled. “You could only be so lucky.”

“Let’s go out for breakfast,” Peter said suddenly. “I’m going to go wake up Ned. Harley, get dressed.”

  
  
  


After breakfast at a diner in Queens that Ned and Peter swore by, Peter and Harley found themselves walking back to the Manhattan penthouse alone. After ten minutes of heartfelt goodbyes and promises to visit again soon, Ned had gone back to his family after breakfast, and MJ took the Subway to her place. Peter was oddly quiet, but Harley let him. Their silence was comfortable anyway, surrounded by the city sounds.

“MoMA?” Peter asked, nudging Harley out of his thoughts with his elbow. Harley smiled.

“Sure. But we’re taking the motorcycle.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No. I’m not getting on that thing, Keener.”

“Yes, you are. Come on, Parker. Where’s your sense of fun?”

“Where’s your common sense?”

“You literally swing from buildings, so shut up. We’re taking the motorcycle.”

Peter finally broke down and didn’t say anything more. Harley grinned in triumph.

Later, helmets and jackets in hand, Harley and Peter stood around the motorcycle in the garage. Harley threw Peter his gear. “Let’s go, Parker. Time’s a-wastin’.”

“I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?” Peter said with a sigh, buckling his helmet on.

“No you’re not. Hold on tight.”

As Harley turned the key, he heard Peter reply ever so softly over his shoulder, “Only for you.”

And with that, they took off through the streets of Manhattan.

  
  
  


When they got to the museum and found parking, which is much easier with a motorcycle than Harley’s car, Peter insisted on paying for their tickets with his student ID but then was content to let Harley drag him around to find the painting his mama liked.

They found it at last on the fifth floor. The museum was relatively unbusy as it was a Sunday morning, and so Harley and Peter were able to stand in front of it for several minutes, unbothered.

“It always reminded me of Abbie,” Harley explained when he was able to speak. “The girl in the painting had some sort of chronic illness and couldn’t walk, but she refused to use a wheelchair. She just dragged herself along. Abbie was the same way. She hated being babied and hated asking for help, and I never knew what to goddamn so, so I just didn’t do anything. And I never saw her. And then she fucking died.”

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispered after a while. It was hollow, but Harley didn’t mind. Peter knew as well as he did that there was really nothing you could say to help someone through the process of grieving.

“I guess I can see why Mama liked it so much. It represents all of us, really. Mama, always working and never asking for help. Me, not asking Tony fucking Stark for help. Always trying to reach for something, some happiness that we could never reach.” Try as he might, Harley couldn’t have stopped his voice from cracking if he wanted to.

“I like to think she made it home eventually,” Peter said. Harley felt his gaze shift from the painting, and it burned a hole in the side of his face.

Without really knowing why, Harley reached out. Peter took his hand in that easy way he always showed affection. “Yeah,” Harley replied at last. “I like to think so too.”

“You should send her a picture,” said Peter after a moment, their hands still joined. “Let her know you made it home.”

Harley almost wanted to say no. He hadn’t talked to his mama since he left in a whirl of grief in pain. Looking at the painting again though, he was hit by a wave of sudden emotion, missing the easy way she loved him, even if she never knew how or had the time to. “Okay.”

  
  
  


Later, while Peter finished packing his stuff in the penthouse, Harley pulled out his phone, took a deep breath, and sent his mama a photo, blurry with the shaking hands of laughter. In it, Harley was caught walking towards Peter with the painting in the background, one of the many Peter had taken like the trigger-happy human being he was when given a camera.

Peter walked out of his bedroom in the penthouse then, his bag and Harley’s bag in tow. He took one look at Harley’s face, and in an unexpected but not entirely unwelcome gesture, pulled Harley into a hug.

_ I’m home _ , Harley texted his mama.  _ I miss you _ .

  
  
  


When they finally got back to the cabin that evening, Harley hung back a little bit as he watched Peter greet Tony, Pepper, and Morgan. The easy, enthusiastic way he hugged Pepper, then Tony, then swept baby Morgan out of her mother’s arms and pressed a kiss to her sleepy head. Tony caught Harley’s eye and smiled, understanding his hesitation more than most. Harley smiled back.

When they had all settled in for dinner, Harley finally announced, “So, I bought a motorcycle.”

The look on Tony’s face was one he’d remember gleefully for years to come.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The painting Harley and Peter go to see is Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth. I have a lot of feelings about it.
> 
> Two updates in less than a week? After months of no update? Let's see how long I can keep this up.
> 
> Catch me on Tumblr: @parknerplease


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